Tesla Battery-Swap Pilot Program To Launch Next Week In California

Tesla Motors will shortly announce that it is launching a pilot program next week to test the long-promised battery-pack swapping technology for its Model S electric sedan.

The swapping site will be located at a facility across the street from the Tesla Supercharger site in Harris Ranch, California--184 miles south of San Francisco and about 200 miles north of Los Angeles.

In fact, the event suggested, two packs could be swapped in that time--with a 90-second swap time portrayed on stage.

The company says now that "for this specific iteration," the swap process will take "approximately 3 minutes"--due to the need to remove the various shields and plates added last year to shield the battery pack from being punctured by road debris.

The company feels it could cut that time to less than 1 minute with changes to the vehicle and further automation of the process.

The pilot program will help Tesla determine whether it should devote time and effort to making those upgrades, depending on the demand for battery swapping versus Supercharging.

The only other application of battery swapping for electric passenger cars thus far was the now-defunct Better Place project in Israel, which at its height had more than 20 swap stations in operation.